Sadie, Crystalline

I'm running on the least sleep I've had in years. For the past week, I've found myself drifting off for an hour or two each night before anxiety pries my eyelids open to scour the ceiling for answers, reading mysteries in the shadows and cracked wood. I'm not even sure about the question. In between my girl's dream-laden breaths beside me, phantoms whisper to me, taunting. Do something, they jeer, if you can figure out what it is you need to do. And so their derision sets the tone for my sleeplessness.

And as my mind races around the darkened corners of the room, scanning from shadow to shadow, Sadie rises to mind. My stomach churns. 

Sadie.

I had arrived a stranger in an even stranger land: Florida. Country ballads and reggaeton jams harmonized in the parking lot. Spanish and Southern accents blended in a unique melange. Hand slaps and daps, smiles and laughter, big hugs. Home-cooked food steamed with aromas from the backwoods and the islands. I took it all in on my first day, soaking up the wash of data around me, a well-traveled observer.

Raised in a quiet New England suburb, the burst of flavor was unfamiliar so close to home. I had come of age between the Northeast Corridor and various locations abroad, immersing in the unfamiliar only to boomerang back to the familiar. While at the time I liked to think of myself as a citizen of the world, I was more accurately a long-stay tourist, holding my breath longer and longer with each dive but still returning to the surface after each plunge. On the road, I developed an appetite for spice, an appreciation for local music, and a bit of language proficiency–but never let myself sink into a community, abroad or at home. Even in my quiet New England suburb, I had been a sociologist studying the culture rather than an active participant. Now pinned to the wall in this novel environment, armed with a frozen gaze and armored with a neutral expression, I waited and watched.

And then Sadie.

A grandmotherly grizzly bear, she sidled up to me and asked if I was new. A gentle drawl and silver bob gave her the aura of a local elder, a perception only reinforced by the regard offered by those passing. I would later learn she had emerged victorious from a grueling battle with cancer and remained the longest-tenured member of our community; she had earned her respect and had scars to show what she had survived. Yet, her sky-eyes shone with an adolescent mischievousness, like she had devised a scheme to pinch the cookies cooling on the windowsill and could hardly wait to reel you into her plan. I still don't know what about my demeanor brought her to take me under her wing, but soon I was undebatably one of hers, a stray pup adopted to a foster home.

In this new family, I learned I wasn't the only one let in from the cold. Sadie had brought other lost sheep into the fold and helped them find their flock, guiding many as they bridged the gap from wandering in the forest to nestling in that forever home. In time, I found my new team, with whom I'd spend my working hours and develop a certain bond. But unlike my foster brothers and sisters, I never quite left Sadie's clan.

Years passed, and we grew closer. Our particular vocation threw us into all sorts of environments and frequently presented new challenges, but we found in each other an enduring sense of sanctuary. Indeed, while I had arrived as the lost stray at her door, I had become, in time, a co-conspirator and confidant. Through the global pandemic, we ensured each other's sanity while pacing in profound isolation, carving ruts with our feet in the desert sand as we waited for our time in purgatory to pass. Through heartbreak and loss, we provided perspective and persistent support, calm companionship while lost in grief. Through achievements and wins, we shared that silent toast between knowing smirks from across the room, a tacit acknowledgment of the shrouded mountain of effort hidden behind each success. In time, our families even came together and found common ground in the simplest of life's pleasures: hearty food, cold beer, good company, lively music, and nature's beauty. Eventually, I realized that I had found that community I had never had, much thanks to its resident mayor welcoming me home.

And yet, in the dark of the night, my troubled mind comes back to Sadie.

I can't remember feeling so troubled by political developments as I do right now. On a human level, I deplore the treatment of others exhibited, the vitriol and mockery too frequently spit out to stir crowds and stoke their worse angels. On a national level, I catastrophize that whatever checks on power still exist will soon fall to the cascading floodwaters of autocratic instinct and self-serving sycophancy. On a global level, I worry that a domestic implosion will provide opportunities for those who would advance their ambitions at significant cost. Above all, I lose sleep for fear that we are about to enter a new phase of even greater human suffering, led into the flames by a man ultimately lacking in compassion, wisdom, and prudence.

In this stew of anxiety, I realize that these recent changes may have more immediate consequences in my life. Throughout our friendship, Sadie and I had never discussed politics directly. We had talked about our families and friends, our lovers and our enemies, our dreams and our nightmares—everything, from the mundane to the profound. But now, boiling in this fearful cauldron, I wondered if Sadie and I stood on opposite sides of this particular line.

Ordinarily, I would argue that people on all sides should work to better understand each other and their respective perspectives. We should once again seek to find common ground, right? We should offer the benefit of the doubt and approach others with grace and humility, yes? I followed that philosophy eight years ago and have no regrets. But this time, with so much more experience validating all those original doubts, I cannot. The abandonment of human decency and the overwhelming volume of evidence that flies in the face of my core values has spread this breach to an impassable abyss.

I don't know where Sadie stands, and I am afraid. I have known her as a loving, kind, and steadfast mother and wife; a competent, compassionate, and confident leader; and an unwavering friend through life's trials and tribulations. But now, I feel like Schrödinger must have when considering his cat and count myself cowardly–or compassionate–for not looking within the box.

How would that knowledge change my experience? Would discovering we had aligned views do anything to strengthen what we've already shared? Would learning that we stood on opposite sides undermine everything we have experienced? Would our unlikely friendship melt away in the inevitable heat of the sun? Would any evidence remain save a slowly shrinking stain on the sidewalk? The same fear of loss that slowed me from participating in any community before Sadie now paralyzes me from seeking further knowledge, aware that the cost of forsaking my ignorance may be entrance to Eden.

Even writing this now, I am not sure how I will proceed, but I know this: what we have shared in the preceding lifetime will exist no matter what I learn. Unless, in true commitment to the bit, Schrödinger refused to breathe around the box in question, even he couldn't have avoided the stench as time passed. But just because the cat is, presumably, dead and decaying does not mean that it didn't once live. Rather, by failing to acknowledge its passing in a more timely manner, we may have missed a more palatable opportunity to bid farewell and honor the love gone by. We have denied ourselves the opportunity to crystallize those memories in the perfection of what was and instead allow the tainted mystery to corrode their beauty. 

So for now, while I remain blissfully ignorant, I will indeed crystallize a treasured collection of memory and prepare for what lies ahead. Perhaps in casual conversation, I will learn that we too share aligned convictions, that this dormant orchid may find a fresh blossom after a bleak interlude. Perhaps I will find my beliefs challenged in a way that I cannot now anticipate, communicated by a trusted voice that somehow resonates in a most unexpected way. Or perhaps I will grieve a living loss, allowing our paths to peacefully diverge.

This thought exercise seems to have sated the devils at play in the corners of my fading eyes, as flickering light shifts with the breeze. I close my eyes for some hard-fought rest and savor that crystalline love.